Healer role design change?

[Shurrikhan]

Cooldown reduction is tricky in a setting like FFXIV. Let's say lilies could reliably reduce the cooldown of certain actions by 50%. If we're talking about a healing resource like Tetragrammaton, that means we're taking a 60 second cooldown down to 30 seconds, but unless you use Tetra immediately, every second you're sitting on it after the 30 second cooldown is rapidly declining the value of the cooldown reduction effect.

Is this supposed to be in response to the specific CDR idea above, or in general?

The idea suggested above doesn't add to that problem, as it only rushes the still-cooling CD chosen rather than reducing the recast time of the next use (as per original Spear).

It also doesn't rush/accelerate all CDs simultaneously... only the one chosen.

I'm not a raider but I think unless the CDR is rng, and/or it resets the cooldown instead of reducing it (like Bard's Bloodletter during Mage's Ballad), people would be using the "new cd" consistently enough that they might as well reduce the ability's default cd altogether - wasn't that what happened with Assize at the end of SB?

People were spending Stormblood Lilies on Assize simply because it was by far the best choice on which to spend Lilies (because its solely percentage-CDR favored accelerating long CDs, and of those long CDs, Assize was the only one worth accelerating). It wasn't particularly that they were trying to fit in an extra Assize per raid buff cycle (back then, the oGCD 400cp was still frequently vital for actual healing in Savage), but simply that it was the least wasteful option for an then-underpowered mechanic.

Had the Lilies also reduced a flat amount of seconds (which in turn favors shorter CDs instead) and the CDR was immediate instead of applying to the next use, you'd likely have seen more varied spending, especially if they just didn't leave Assize so damn OP compared to everything else / everything else so lackluster relative to Assize.

[ty_taurus]

Is this supposed to be in response to the specific CDR idea above, or in general?

The idea suggested above doesn't add to that problem, as it only rushes the still-cooling CD chosen rather than reducing the recast time of the next use (as per original Spear).

It also doesn't rush/accelerate all CDs simultaneously... only the one chosen.

It was more just a general thought on the usability of CDR in this game with how much weight is placed on every individual second.

[AmiableApkallu]

this game with how much weight is placed on every individual second.

I'm into my cups, so I'm going to push back: How true is that, really? What content in this game requires you to play to absolute, mathematical perfection for 8+, 10+, 15+ minutes?

Like, I get the desire to optimize spreadsheets, and to collect high-scoring spreadsheets. But what content are you running, what gear are you running it with such that "every individual second" actually makes the difference between wiping vs. clearing?

[ty_taurus]

I'm into my cups, so I'm going to push back: How true is that, really? What content in this game requires you to play to absolute, mathematical perfection for 8+, 10+, 15+ minutes?

Like, I get the desire to optimize spreadsheets, and to collect high-scoring spreadsheets. But what content are you running, what gear are you running it with such that "every individual second" actually makes the difference between wiping vs. clearing?

I agree that there's a value in weighing practicality into the equation, but what I meant was how specific and down to the number this community tends to get when it comes to squeezing optimization out of each job. On Dancer, for example, one of the values that has been brought up of the action Tilana, a 1.5 second GCD timer follow-up after Technical Finish, is that you get 1 extra GCD in the last second of Devilment after Technical Finish Falls off. That's more what I meant about weight in each second.

[Shurrikhan]

It was more just a general thought on the usability of CDR in this game with how much weight is placed on every individual second.

Again, though... you're not describing a change there as a result of CDR-as-a-mechanic, only... of greater APM in general outside of filler GCDs. That "problem" would already be the literal case from just having one more oGCD to fit in your opener, or any CD being shortened or spender taking less time to generate.

And, in the particular example, again... these are oGCD heals (or hybrids) we're talking about, and in this case with a massive banking margin (5 Medica II's worth) that can be spent perfectly on demand on precisely the ability that one wants to use before it has fully cooled. Yeah, it'd offer increased APM, but the result of the 'rush'-ed CD use is... a full CD (though one again 'rush'-able), not something inherently more likely to go to waste.

[Allegor]

I'm not a raider but I think unless the CDR is rng, and/or it resets the cooldown instead of reducing it (like Bard's Bloodletter during Mage's Ballad), people would be using the "new cd" consistently enough that they might as well reduce the ability's default cd altogether - wasn't that what happened with Assize at the end of SB?

[PercibelTheren]

I would like them to do one of two things. Either:

A: Make me use my healing tools if you're gonna keep giving me so many. I have a massive arsenal of heals but I'm encouraged to only ever use my GCD healing when things are going horribly wrong. Otherwise it's all regen/OGCD heals and mindless 1 button damage spells.

B: Remove some of the obsolete healing tools (seriously, Cure I and Benefic I can just upgrade to their stronger versions, the RNG part of them isn't even worth it) that nobody uses and give healers more damage options.

I think the most fun I have ever had on a healer in any MMO was Rift's Chloromancer, which was a healer who had to be proactive because most of its healing was done through dealing damage and debuffing the enemy. It had spot heals, but they couldn't cover the entire demand for healing. I was excited for Sage when I heard it was "deal damage to heal" but it turns out Kardia is basically just a glorified regen on the tank.

[ForsakenRoe]

I think the most fun I have ever had on a healer in any MMO was Rift's Chloromancer, which was a healer who had to be proactive because most of its healing was done through dealing damage and debuffing the enemy. It had spot heals, but they couldn't cover the entire demand for healing. I was excited for Sage when I heard it was "deal damage to heal" but it turns out Kardia is basically just a glorified regen on the tank.

Or Discipline Priest in WOW, which is a healer that has to be proactive because most of it's healing is done through dealing damage and debuffing the enemy (Smite reduces the damage of the next autoattack by a flat amount iirc). It has to use skills to apply 'Atonement' to allies, which marks them for the transfer of damage>healing, but it has a fairly long CD on the skills that apply Atonement in an AOE, it only applies to 5 allies (rough in a 20man mythic), and the durations of those AOE-applied Atonements is lower, so gameplay involves 'ramping', ie, applying the Atonements and extending their duration ahead of the raidwide damage, and then doing essentially a 2min burst window, to maximise the damage that is transferred into healing

Instead we have Kardia, which is 'the old Embrace Macro'.

For removing obsolete healing tools like Cure1/Benefic1, they should have done that back in SB when they started consolidating the damage skills (ie, Stone1/2/3/4 upgrade into each other), it's insane to me that it's over 5 years on and they still haven't done it, who's using Cure 1 in endgame content? As for Sage though, the issue with Chloromancer and Discipline is that if you get overwhelmed and cannot keep up, there's not really a fall-back per se. Our classes have a Medica they can spam if panic is happening. I'd say the devs should have realized this 'liferaft' exists for the casual players, and made SGE healing more technical. After all, if a healer is struggling to keep up with the technical damage>healing gameplay of SGE and starts to flounder, they can spam Prognosis until the party's stable again, at the cost of some of their damage. Couple of us who have suggested reworks to the class even go one step further, and make Prognosis cost zero MP! The only 'cost' it'd have in our designs is that it costs you a GCD of damage. But of course, SE's design team is allergic to the idea of nuance, complexity, etc at the moment, so instead we have Scholar 2

[Shurrikhan]

Or Discipline Priest in WOW, which is a healer that has to be proactive because most of it's healing is done through dealing damage and debuffing the enemy (Smite reduces the damage of the next autoattack by a flat amount iirc).

As someone who's played quite a bit of Disc Priest both before and after its rework towards a vampiric healer... I never quite got the hype. Ultimately, it was at best just a healer with slightly better than average combined DPS + HPS in situations with damage-window-exploitability... at the cost of being far less able to burst-damage or burst-heal. For all its indirectness, it's really just very... flat.

Tbf, there are still some periods where it's done better than others, gameplay-wise. When it's had far more bankability and dynamism in its DPS, it's at least also had some part of that in its heals... since they're one and the same.

And of course, syncing modifiers (i.e., by placing on-ally buffs from which they receive healing at X% of your damage dealt) to potency (your actual attacks' potency that may fall within those buff windows) always has its appeal, even if... that's essentially just the likes of Twin Snakes but ally-by-ally and doesn't feel like anything especially healer-esque.


But, I feel like the main thing Sage can take away from Disc Priest isn't that "damage-based healing is cool," but rather that "damage-based healing is really boring unless you have significant controllable dynamism to your damage and windows around which to sync it." Case in point -- Kardia being basically just a Regen with a benefit of being oGCD but whose existence squishes the job's GCD-based healing burst. Make it instead a % and give SGE some serious damage bankability (weaker filler, but more frequent and layered burst actions that needn't just be used on CD), though, and it'd actually be an interesting mechanic in practice.

[vetch]

But, I feel like the main thing Sage can take away from Disc Priest isn't that "damage-based healing is cool," but rather that "damage-based healing is really boring unless you have significant controllable dynamism to your damage and windows around which to sync it."

I'm having a real hard time thinking of ways to fit a genuine 'your damage amount determines your heal amount' healer into a 'save every damage cooldown for 60/120s windows or you're griefing' combat design.